Sir Launcelot Greaves, then, is significant among Smollett's novels, as indicating a reliance upon the personages for interest quite as much as upon the adventures.

If the author failed in a similar intention in Fathom, it was not through lack of clearly conceived characters, but through failure to make them flesh and blood.

In that book, however, he put the adventures together more skilfully than in Sir Launcelot Greaves, the plot of which is not only rather meagre but also far-fetched.

There seems to be no adequate reason for the baronet's whim of becoming an English Don Quixote of the eighteenth century, except the chance it gave Smollett for imitating Cervantes.

He was evidently hampered from the start by the consciousness that at best the success of such imitation would be doubtful.